Man With The Iron Suit

Iron Man 2

**1/2 out of ****

Directed by: Jon Favreau

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Mickey Rourke, Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle and Sam Rockwell

Running time: 124 minutes

Everything that went brilliantly right with the first Iron Man film – the spot-on performances, the irresistible charm of narcissistic playboy protagonist Tony Stark, a flurry of amusing laugh-out-loud moments uncommon of the superhero genre – is also present in its sequel.

So why does Iron Man 2, the first mega-blockbuster of the summer, feel so unsatisfying?

This model may be flashier and features a broader array of gadgets than its predecessor, but when put together, the parts don’t complement each other to serve an efficient, focused, well-balanced whole. It's grandly entertaining, but also overloads itself with underwritten subplots.

In this installment, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is enjoying his enlarged celebrity status by keeping the world safe and secure with his Iron Man technology. While fame goes to his head, the palladium chemical in his armor suit slowly kills everything else inside him.

Uncertain of whether he can be saved by a substitute element, Stark gives his former assistant, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), his company's CEO position. He starts drinking, too.

While Tony’s death begins to seem imminent, it becomes the least of his concerns.

A Russian physicist named Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) is keen on revenge. Vanko's father, who collaborated with Stark’s daddy before banishment to Russia by Stark Industries and a miserable life in poverty, dies.

Vanko has created an arc reactor to thrash (or more appropriately, give “Whiplash” to) our steel-cloaked protagonist, to honour his father's accomplishments and demonize Stark Industries.

Furthermore, a rival weapons manufacturer, Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), is poised to shame the billionaire playboy in front of the US Congress – where Tony is summoned to give up his technology – while upping the ante with new warfare of his own.

Finally, Pepper's replacement arrives in the form of a very sultry and mysterious young woman named Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson), who Tony is eager to seduce.

A sequel needs to deliver more, but not in the ways Iron Man 2 delivers “more.” The storylines of characters we’ve grown to adore – Tony, Pepper, Rhodey (Don Cheadle, replacing Terrence Howard after a contrast dispute) – are stilted in their development to make way for plenty of subplots involving new characters.

Screenwriter Justin Theroux (Tropic Thunder) has followed in the footsteps of other inferior superhero sequels (X2: X-Men United, Batman Returns, Spider-Man 3) by adding a new group of characters without adding to the complexities to the characters that were already there.

The film shrugs off the engaging personal drama of one of comic lore’s most charismatic figures, the insatiable Tony Stark. Theroux introduces the idea of Tony being Iron Man’s biggest adversary, but does little with it.

When your protagonist is throwing his life away on liquor, (especially when he’s portrayed by a post-rehab Downey Jr.), the drama aches to become candid and entirely compelling. Instead, it resolves itself quickly with a clanky battle between Iron Man and his metal sidekick, War Machine, set to the beats of Queen and Daft Punk.

Furthermore, it doesn’t help matters when your villains aren’t, well, all that bad. Rockwell's Justin Hammer is a plucky rival for Stark, but even though his deliciously obnoxious portrayal recalls a PG-13 hybrid of Ari Gold and Gordon Gekko, he’s a one-dimensional creation.

Ditto to Vanko, who is ready to thwart Tony as a way to expose the darker undercurrents of Stark Industries. But there is little development within his tale, as well.

This intriguing means to explore the question of good and evil of our protagonist, his father, and the morality of their weapons manufacturing is shoved aside entirely. Didn’t these questions of moral ambiguity help make The Dark Knight such riveting, thought-provoking entertainment?

Regardless, even when the characters and their storylines aren’t developed to their potential, the performers are excellent.

Downey Jr. continues his dry, sarcastic quirkiness as our cocksure hero, while Paltrow is wonderful as his intelligent but cautious aide, playing both companion and character foil to our snarky hero. Their scenes together are the highlights of the film.

Director Jon Favreau, who helmed the original, has also become more confident with filming action sequences. Iron Man 2's big-budget FX setpieces are dazzling, nimble and (refreshingly) shot and edited in a clear and cohesive manner. We can see the battles between Iron Man and Whiplash without suffering from whiplash ourselves.

But when all is said and done, Iron Man 2 is merely serviceable. While some parts - mainly the action sequences - are Marvel-ous, other sections - mainly the character driven ones - feel stagnant and disposable.

That’s what happens when more time is focused on the machines than to the people inside of them.